Documentos e Relatórios

Main results of the survey on the impact of counseling on knowledge, feelings and actions of over-indebted borrowers (Inglês)

Resumo

A growing body of empirical work suggests that personalized, just-in-time consultation about financial decision making, with an emphasis on goal-setting, may be more effective to bring about improvements in financial consumer behavior than generalized... Exibir mais +A growing body of empirical work suggests that personalized, just-in-time consultation about financial decision making, with an emphasis on goal-setting, may be more effective to bring about improvements in financial consumer behavior than generalized, classroom-style education. With this in mind, IFC piloted two campaigns to provide free, neutral, on-the-street financial counseling services to consumers in two provincial capitals of Kyrgyzstan – Naryn and Talas, in October and November 2015. In order to assess the impact of these counseling campaigns on consumers’ knowledge about their financial standing, feelings of readiness and capability to make good decisions, and actions to better balance income and expenses, maintain a household budget, IFC carried out an impact assessment of participants and control groups from Talas and Naryn at 0-, 3, and 6 months from the time of the counseling campaigns. The results provide valuable insights into the ways in which counseling can prove effective, and unexpected findings about what drives financial consumers to change their behavior. The financial counseling campaigns demonstrated significant positive impacts on planning, budgeting, and even income-generation. Counseling was not a magic bullet, however. Ambitious intentions and behavior improvements were seen mostly in the first three months, and then were muted or disappeared after 6 months. An unexpected result was improvements in planning and income generation among the control group (while in Kyrgyzstan generally, the economy grew more slowly and microfinance portfolios deteriorated); the findings suggest that the survey process itself motivated behavior changes, that the effect of nudging, reminding, or creating social pressure turned out to be a very powerful tool, even in the absence of counseling. The study also suggests that consumers’ feelings of self-confidence and optimism correlate with proactive financial decision-making, as evidenced by stark differences in behavior and feelings between the two provinces.
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